Making a spoof movie is hard, fiendishly so. Don’t believe me? Think you can just throw together a bunch of jokes about pop culture and guys getting hit in the nuts, and your movie will recoup a tidy profit? Not so much, and I’ve come with proof. Exhibits A and B are Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.

Friedberg and Seltzer were a struggling screenwriting team in the 1990s. They sold a few scripts, did a rewrite for a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, and after years of almost breaking through, they took a chance. They insisted on directing one of their own scripts that had sold previously. The end result was 2006’s Date Movie, a spoof of romantic comedies. On the one hand, it was a massive hit, making $84 million worldwide. On the other hand, Date Movie kind of sucks. The filmmaking is sloppy, the acting is too broad, and the jokes generally feel like first drafts. After that, they made seven more spoof movies, and a little investigation tells me that all of them were critically savaged. They haven’t made a movie since 2015.

I don’t point all that out to sneer at Friedberg and Seltzer. The point is that a pure spoof comedy is almost impossible to pull off, and lots of other filmmakers have tried and failed. Since the 1970s, the only ones that have really stuck were Airplane, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Spaceballs, and Top Secret. Oh, and The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad. That film was so beloved, it spawned two sequels, both of which are not great. It also spawned a legacy sequel, The Naked Gun, one that improbably stands toe to toe with the greats.

Do we really need to talk about the plot? Probably not, so let’s keep it simple. Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) follows proudly in his father’s footsteps as a member of Police Squad, a special division of the LAPD that’s…virtually identical to the regular police department. Frank is a thorn in the side of his long-suffering captain (CCH Pounder) and his also long-suffering partner Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser). 

Naturally, after initially being assigned to investigate a routine (seemingly?) car crash, Frank stumbles into both a Plot and a plot device. He’ll run afoul of ruthless tech tycoon Richard Cane (Danny Huston) and his equally ruthless henchman Sig (Kevin Durand). He’ll fall hard for Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), a woman who may not be what she seems but is actually exactly what she seems. He’ll eat far too many chili dogs. He’ll see an owl.

I think there are only two details that really matter about The Naked Gun. Is it funny and does it at least kind of work as a movie? Director Akiva Schaffer knows more than a thing or two about comedy and filmmaking. He spent years at Saturday Night Live, and made the very funny Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. With The Naked Gun, Schaffer has made a film that bursts out of the gate and never stops. How could it, considering it’s only eighty-five minutes long? Unlike a lot of cheap-looking comedies, The Naked Gun looks and sounds great, and the clever editing will have you searching the frame for jokes.*

Speaking of jokes, the screenplay by Schaffer, Doug Mand and Dan Gregor is packed to the brim with them. One of the secrets is that, like other successful parody movies, you can’t just throw in a lot of jokes and call it good. You need slapstick, wordplay, low humor, high humor, and every so often, some straight-up weird shit. You also need a rhythm, an ebb and flow, which begins with the writing. While some of the gags are obvious, off the top of my head, I can easily think of six that had me gasping for breath.

The other secret to making a great parody comedy is that you cannot cast a comedian in the lead. They will make the mistake of trying to be funny, which will instantly make everything not funny. The GOAT Leslie Nielsen understood this in both the first Naked Gun and Airplane, and so does Liam Neeson. There are only a few moments where Neeson seems to actively be trying for a laugh. Instead, he mostly plays it as seriously as possible, which makes it all hilarious. Pamela Anderson is right there with him in terms of her pure willingness to fling herself into the nonsense. Her scene in a nightclub of increasingly deranged scatting is ridiculous in the best possible way.

As far as I can tell, Friedberg and Seltzer haven’t made a movie since their 2015 parody of The Fast and the Furious, entitled Superfast. I have no idea if they’ve retired, moved into a different line of work, or if they’re honing their skills. I wish them no ill will, and I hope they’re trying to level up. The Naked Gun is proof that spoof movies might be the hardest genre of film to pull off. Being that stupid takes immense intelligence.

*That presumes people will actually leave their homes and pay to get into a movie theater to watch a comedy.

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.